


fire fed on melancholy

by MathildaHilda



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23680888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: Aurora does not make it past dawn.
Relationships: Elijah Mikaelson & Klaus Mikaelson, Freya Mikaelson & Klaus Mikaelson, Hayley Marshall & Klaus Mikaelson
Kudos: 6





	fire fed on melancholy

**Author's Note:**

> I stopped watching the show around s2, but somehow stumbled upon this episode and I made it little sadder than it had to be, and so any mistakes and other deviations from the show (other than the very obvious one) are my own

Fire blackens the forest floor, trails of ember and smoke making their way heavenward – blown adrift by the wind.

Fire blackens the sky, the trees, the leaves upon which the fire still burn – slowed, however slightly, by the desperation of the one left behind.

If fury was known by a different name, it would surely have been his.

~

A friend turned fiend claws at his throat, deep in the halls of New Orleans.

Born again creatures – friends and fiends and bastards – passes with the crackle come from fire and the snap a body makes once a bullet finds its final resting place.

The world is an angry place, full of dreamers.

The dreamers and the bastards have all gone to sleep.

The world remains an angry place, with no place left for born again dreamers.

~

Aurora does not make it past dawn.

She is not Lucien, with the power of far too many.

She is not Tristan, already gone by her hand – unknowingly, unwittingly.

She is Aurora, a woman scorned and turned. A creature from stories long since told to children.

But so is he.

He was not born cruel, and yet he stands in her doorway, eyes aglow with something far too dark for sky-blue eyes.

Had his brother still stood beside him – and hers stood by her – perhaps he would have found her a more fitting end for crimes born against him and those he loved most, rather than the one he has figured out.

( _just for her – it’s quite the honour_ )

But, alas, the ground is burned black, and he has yet to rid his hands of blood.

( _blood sizzles away with fire,_

 _but Niklaus Mikaelson does not wish to burn just yet_ ,)

One tells stories of vampires and beasts to children and those new to their second coming of life.

But, stories are so often turned into myth and legend, and their meanings forgotten far too easily.

Aurora’s crimes were grave, indeed, and, yet, she would have been well to remember just why exactly he is named the worst of them all.

~

The shot rings out from between the trees.

It is a broken sound, never meant for them – in their own mind, one might add – and it shatters the silence.

_(it is now deafeningly loud_ )

He lets her run.

There are more pressing matters at hand, so to speak when he presses his hands against his brother’s chest and sees the existence of pain, growing ever louder.

He has yet to reach his brother’s heart when he turns ashen, veins of black growing upon a dying face.

‘ _leave_ ,’ his very own brother says. ‘ _never_ ,’ is his own reply.

They are both breaking their promise. One dies, one does not.

Forever, as so often told, is nothing more than a lie.

~

Lucien remains a problem, Aurora does not, when he returns to New Orleans with his fingers wrapped around a box.

It is plain, made of carved wood – unceremoniously stolen – but it was all he could find in the amount of time he found himself suddenly lacking.

He would have begged, had it been in his nature, when he places the box – carefully – on the table, across from his sister.

‘ _tristan is dead_ ,’ he says, rather than the obvious, burning words that reside upon his tongue.

Would it be that the truth didn’t hurt as much as it did, he would’ve spat them out, if only to rid himself of the taste of them.

She seems confused for a moment, blonde brows knitted closely together and mouth open to the beginning of a question.

He taps the box three times, fingers gingerly touching the plain lid.

He doesn’t ask her. Doesn’t beg her.

( _not yet_ )

Even if they are all things, he would more than gladly do.

She steals the box from under his fingers, her own fingers around the clasp. He bites his tongue. There is – surprisingly – very little left for him to say.

Freya holds the box as if though it contained a heart, and not the very embodiment of a lifelong promise, abruptly and unwillingly broken.

~

There’s no bringing back lost little brothers, Freya doesn’t quite say when she meets his eyes over the box in the dining hall.

Klaus bites his tongue.

She holds Finn’s soul close to her chest. There’s no space remaining in the blue of that stone.

There are only ashes.

~

Hayley holds herself upright by sheer force of will, or so it would seem for someone looking in from another world entirely.

He looks on after the words have finally spilt from his lips.

She meets his eyes for half a moment, and then not at all.

He wouldn’t want the grief. They both know this.

They grieve him all the same.

Hope holds a tie made of silk, in her small, gentle hand, and all he can think of, once he spots his daughter, is just how easily death enters and leaves.

Death is a player in eternity’s game, created to be played without any rules.


End file.
